Senators to request walrus catch quotas for Chukotka residents

The Federation Council Committee on Agriculture and Food Policy and Environmental Management will ask the Federal Agency for Fishery to speed up the setting of Pacific walrus catch quotas for Chukotka residents, reports REGNUM. Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko gave such instructions to the committee following a speech by Senator Anna Otke.

According to Otke, the catch volumes for the Pacific walrus are not specified in the 2019 order of the Russian Fishery Agency.

"The Pacific walrus, caught solely for the purpose of maintaining a traditional lifestyle, is an important object of traditional culture, as well as a significant and indispensable food product in the conditions of the Far North. But it turns out that the population of one-third of all settlements in the whole region is deprived of its main year-round type of high-quality meat," said Otke.

But the Federal Agency for Fishery has not responded to the appeal of the local government and Federation Council members, she said.

"I would ask you to instruct the Committee on Agriculture and Food Policy to speed up the decision on granting walrus catch quotas to residents of the Chukotka Autonomous Region in 2019," the parliamentarian said. Valentina Matviyenko promised to support the proposal.